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Blair signals retreat on Iraq weapons 

By Jean Eaglesham, Political Correspondent 

December 17 2003 (Financial Times) Tony Blair yesterday signalled a retreat from his previous confident assertions that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq - the principal rationale used by the British government for the conflict.


The prime minister instead suggested the search would uncover evidence of how the Iraqi regime had disposed of the chemical or biological weapons it had previously possessed.

Mr Blair was careful to avoid asserting that Saddam Hussein had had weapons of mass destruction when the conflict started in the spring. He referred instead to much earlier uses of such weapons by the former Iraqi leader, stating: "That he had them is beyond doubt . . . he used them against Iran, he used them against his own people."

Asked in an interview with the BBC Arabic Service if he was still certain weapons would be found - an assertion he has repeatedly made - the prime minister said he was "confident that the Iraq Survey Group, when it does its work, will find what has happened to those weapons, because that he had them, there is absolutely no doubt at all".

Mr Blair also cited evidence quoted in the survey group's interim report of a clandestine network of laboratories as evidence of the regime's efforts to conceal weapons.

The prime minister's apparent change of stance could fuel the simmering political row over the reasons given for the war. Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, last night claimed Mr Blair's remarks fell a "long way short of what is necessary to show that there was an imminent and urgent threat to the UK from weapons of mass destruction".

* Saddam Hussein is not likely to go on trial for at least six months, according to officials in the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad, writes James Harding from Baghdad.

The timetable for Mr Hussein's trial is being driven by the complex need to establish a court that satisfies the Iraqi people as well as standing up to the scrutiny of the world community.

CPA officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, think Mr Hussein would not be tried until July at the earliest, setting up the possibility of a televised trial of Saddam Hussein in the final months of the US presidential contest in 2004.

Copyright: Financial Times